Former nurse Roger Dean received life in prison with no chance of parole for setting the fire in a nursing home that killed 11 people.
Dean confessed to 11 counts of murder and eight charges of causing grievous bodily harm to residents, some of whom suffered from dementia.
“The pain and terror suffered by all of the victims must have been horrific,” Judge Megan Latham told Gulf New. “For those who were unable to move independently and who faced the prospect of being burnt alive or suffocated by smoke, a worse fate is difficult to imagine.”
Australian Authorities accused Dean of starting the fire to cover his theft of prescription medication.
Dean blamed Satan for his actions.
"You won't believe it, but it was like Satan saying to me that it's the right thing to do," Dean told police, the Associated Pressreports. "I love the residents very much and I have a really good rapport with them. So I feel extremely bad and I just feel evil — that I'm just corrupted with evil thoughts that had made me do that."